So why is it the first game in MCC? It’s chronologically the first of the bunch, but Halo Reach is NOT written that way. Anyone new to Halo who’s playing Reach before anything else is robbed of the experience that Halo Reach’s campaign provides.
Much of Reach’s story relies heavily on context established by the knowledge of events and characters from Halo 1-3. Someone playing Reach for the first time won’t understand the significance of the “latchkey” discovery in the story and why delivering this random blue A.I. to a ship called The Pillar of Autumn is so important.
I‘ve made this point before but I hope 343 can correct this by simply ordering the games by release date in the menu. Even if they went for the chronological approach, the current order is wrong as well given that Halo 3: ODST is placed after 3 but set before the events of Halo 3.
it’s first because it was Chronologically the first PC title released in the Collection, as well as it being followed by CEA and not CE. the claim it “robs people of the experience” is also just silly, since the same could be said about experiencing the narrative in order.
while these moments did serve as fanservice for people who played all the titles up till Reach’s release; fanservice does not equate to required knowledge for the narrative to have cohesion. this line of thinking would be on-par with telling someone they need to play Halo 3 to understand the significance of the Halo Ring being called Installation 04, or as to what the Index is used for in Halo CE.
to move the titles based on Release Date would still place CEA and H2A after it, making newcomers start with Halo 3. Personally, I think the best option would be to just move ODST to sit after H2A and before Halo 3. currently every title in the MCC is organized to be one continuous Narrative except for ODST, which is erroneous as it was purpose built to occupy that placement before Halo 3 in the narrative.